


Jolly Old Saint DILF

by TheMalapert



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cute Kids, Dara should be in more fics, Fluff, Horny Jaskier | Dandelion, M/M, Meet-Cute, Mistletoe, Shy Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, no beta we die
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 17:42:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,188
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27980202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMalapert/pseuds/TheMalapert
Summary: Jaskier takes Dara to a Christmas lights display and meets the hottest man he's ever seen. Who also happens to have a daughter. Who also happens to know Dara?
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 23
Kudos: 296





	Jolly Old Saint DILF

**Author's Note:**

> Fluffy Christmas indulgence. My house has been decorated since Black Friday.

Jaskier didn’t know a human could be this tired. Not in all his college all nighters, not in all his midnight shows, not in all his breakup binges, had he  _ ever  _ been as exhausted. It was his own fault, though. 

He just wanted to make Christmas so special. It was his first major holiday after acquiring Dara, and Jaskier was bringing the fucking magic, okay? 

A real, full tree. Hours shopping around an antique market for every ball and bauble Dara could hook a string to. A tree topper  _ that lit up _ . Matching stockings. Hot chocolate every night with marshmallows  _ and  _ candy canes. It was everything he’d always wanted out of Christmas, and Dara hadn’t had that haunted look on his face in weeks. 

It helped that Jaskier’s parents had promised to pay for everything if Jaskier would make their problem go away. The Lettenhove family was as large as it was disjointed. Jaskier hadn’t even known the cousin’s who’d put his parents as their beneficiaries, but he did know they hadn’t done it because Jaskier’s parents were particularly warm and inviting. The old bats were loaded, old money—so old, that some people called them shit like  _ Lord  _ and  _ Lady _ . That’s why they’d cut off their loser musician son nearly ten years ago. Jaskier wouldn’t say he was thriving, but he was holding his own. Then he got the call about Dara and like hell was he going to let another kid wallow at the Lettenhove estate. So he’d cleaned the wine bottles off his floor, cleared out his recording room for a bedroom, and happily took the “family” credit card. 

Dara better like gifts, cause he was getting spoiled rotten. 

Dara seemed to love the lights display, and Jaskier mentally high fived himself. Dara was asking a million questions about how they flashed and synched up with the music. Jaskier blessed his theater knowledge that he was actually able to answer a little bit, years of backstage lighting design coming in handy just this once. Dara was a tactile kid, though, and he kept taking off his gloves to try and touch the lights as they walked the snow dusted path. 

“They’re doing their job right now, darling,” Jaskier said gently, crouching and tugging Dara’s gloves back on.

“So we shouldn’t touch them,” Dara pouted. 

They’d had a long conversation about why the apartment manager’s  _ puppy  _ was off-limits for pets while she had the vest on. 

“They’re for looking,” Jaskier said. “You can hold my hand if you need to touch something.”

Dara looked suspiciously at Jaskier’s ratty, dollar store gloves. Jaskier pulled his left glove off and did the same with Dara’s right, tucking them both into his coat pocket. 

“If you let go of my hand, my fingers will be terribly cold,” Jaskier said, twining their fingers together. Dara smiled and squeezed. He ran his thumb over Jaskier’s guitar calluses with reverence. 

“I won’t!” He stared at Jaskier with the fiery determination only a six year old could muster, and then he was distracted again by a large willow rippling from silver to blue to the tune of “Deck the Halls.”

They only had .7 miles of the trail left, right? Jaskier couldn’t remember if that was until the end or included the walk back to the parking lot. Then of course the walk back to the apartment. Jaskier wondered how long until he could put a mom van on his card without his parents accusing him of embezzlement. 

The lights were magic and a great idea and a major hit with Dara… but they all sort of blurred together as Jaskier tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes. He let Dara pull him around, trusting the boy to know what displays he was most interested in. Jaskier didn’t even notice when Dara completely stopped until it started closing in on ten minutes, and his legs started to feel the chill instead of the burn. Jaskier glanced down to see his young ward staring, open-mouthed down the path. Dara’s fingers dug into Jaskier’s hand, and Jaskier dropped to one knee.

“What’s up, buttercup?” 

Dara breathed, “Is that Santa?”

“Oh, no, I don’t think—“ Jaskier started babbling before he even spotted the supposed Santa, and he stopped in his tracks.

There, sitting on a bench underneath a dimly glowing pine, was the hottest man Jaskier had ever seen. Thighs for days, shoulders that could not be contained by the worn leather jacket zipped up to his throat. Stark, stunning white hair with a fucking  _ undercut _ , and that  _ beard _ —oh. Jaskier tilted his head and decided this guy did kind of look like Santa Claus, especially to a child. He spotted a little girl swinging her legs next to the man, gazing at all the thousands of lights, and she said something that made the man smile. Jaskier’s brain momentarily blinked out of existence.

He was moving before he realized it. 

“Excuse me,” Jaskier heard come out of his mouth. The man looked up, exposing a scar bisecting his eye, and Jaskier nearly swooned like a Victorian maiden high on asbestos. “You wouldn’t happen to be related to Santa Claus, would you?”

The man blinked, his brow furrowing before glancing down to Dara’s owl-eyes. His cheeks, already pink from the cold, turned a very jolly red. 

Both of them were spared when the girl piped up, “Dara?”

“Ciri?” Dara unclenched his stiff fingers and left Jaskier’s side, giving the undecided-as-of-yet Santa man a wide berth. He whispered loudly, “You know Santa?”

“That’s my dad, Geralt,” Ciri answered. 

“Jaskier.” The musician tried to perk up a little as he stuck out his hand, but Geralt smirked knowingly, sensing the com-dad-erie. Jaskier again mentally high fived himself for that pun. 

“Dad, this is Dara. He’s in my class at school,” Ciri explained. 

Jaskier would blame the tiredness for how hard that hit him. Pride swelled in his chest like a flash flood, pressing behind his eyes. Dara hadn’t mentioned any friends at school, but Jaskier chalked it up to the trauma and the newness of the whole situation. Considering it took nearly two weeks to get Dara to say more than  _ yes  _ and  _ no _ , Jaskier was willing to wait on the social graces. But Dara  _ did _ have a friend. A cute little girl like that who was smiling at the boy and who had taken off her glove to hold Dara’s cold hand. Jaskier squeezed his eyes until the tears retreated a little. 

“We were just taking a break before the end, if you’d like to—?” Geralt stood and awkwardly nodded towards the rest of the trail. 

“Yes, come with us! We know the best spots!” Ciri used her grip on Dara’s hand to pull him down the path. His eyes bugged cartoonishly before he relented, the two jolting off towards a row of dancing Christmas trees. 

Jaskier fell into step with Geralt, following at a sedate pace. 

“This is our third time,” Geralt said, and Jaskier suppressed a smile.

“So you really are the perfect tour guides.” The children were zig-zagging across the wide sidewalk, Ciri pointing out everything and anything of interest. At a leisurely stroll, Jaskier and Geralt were able to keep pace purely by virtue of walking straight. 

“They seem to get along well—I,” Geralt cut himself off, brow furrowing. He refused to look at Jaskier, preferring instead to squint into the distance. “Ciri doesn’t have many friends at school, but she’s told me a lot about Dara.”

“I haven’t heard a thing about her,” Jaskier chuckled ruefully. “Dara’s very quiet, but I guess I can stop fretting over his social life.”

“Hmmm.”

Jaskier had always been one to fill silences, but for some reason he started spilling his life’s story, “I only got him a few months ago, wow, has it already been five? Almost six? Time flies, but it also doesn’t, you know? Anyways, it was a hard transition for him, and it’s not like I’m father figure of the year. More like uncle figure of the… I don’t know.”

“It is hard,” Geralt said. “For both of you. I adopted Ciri after her grandmother died, and I was the only person family-adjacent.”

Jaskier’s mouth hung open before he remembered his manners and snapped it shut. Warmth like princess sparkles and tree lights crackled in his gut. Jaskier tried to reign it in, but he’d always fallen in love so easily. Too easily. 

“Same for us. I didn’t even know Dara’s parents, but they were cousins, and…” Jaskier shrugged. Geralt’s head tilted, gaze slicing sideways, and Jaskier swore those eyes were molten gold. It wasn’t the thousands of twinkling lights surrounding them; Geralt’s eyes glowed. And Jaskier’s heart melted. 

He forced his gaze back to the children who’d found a small pavilion to dance around in. Jaskier was sure the heat creeping up his neck was giving him away, but somehow—he snuck another peek at the silver-haired Adonis—he didn’t think Geralt minded. They meandered into the pavilion and watched as Ciri pulled Dara around the circumference. She was humming a tune Jaskier was familiar with, spinning and leaping with Dara trailing behind. Jaskier followed the web of lights up the columns, the curling iron rafters, to where each string met in a swirl of soft yellow light. 

There hanging from the center, just above their heads, was a hefty bushel of mistletoe. Jaskier laughed and swept Dara into his arms when they twirled too close. 

“Mistletoe!” He shouted. He planted a loud, dramatic kiss on Dara’s cheek.

Ciri shrieked and launched herself into her father’s arms. Geralt, for his part, managed to wrangle her enough not to drop her as she said, “Quick, Dad, we can’t be cursed!”

Geralt dropped a kiss to her cheek with a huff, and she beamed.

“Now Jaskier!” She demanded and presented her chill-reddened cheek.

Oh Jaskier _ liked _ her! He laughed at Geralt’s apologetic glare—somehow both repentant and scolding, his strong features multitasking so that everyone knew this was not his idea. Jaskier dutifully pressed a kiss to her cheek, and she squirmed until Geralt let her go. 

“Now you two,” she said, gesturing between Jaskier and Geralt. 

“Ciri,” Geralt growled, but she shrugged.

“I don’t make the rules.” 

Jaskier didn’t comment on her lack of kiss to Dara. When he glanced at Geralt, the grizzled, scarred man looked almost… shy? They were the same height, but Geralt was slouching, shrinking in on himself enough that he was looking up from under his lashes, blushing. Jaskier swooped in and treated him to an Italian greeting—a kiss to the air on either side. But he got to feel that beard against his face.

“Hurry! Quick! Before we have to do it again!” Ciri grabbed Dara and shot out of the pavilion. 

Jaskier did  _ not _ think Geralt looked disappointed. 

All too soon, they were at the end of the trail and then headed back to the parking lot. Jaskier breezed through much safer topics while they walked, with the occasional hummed input from Geralt. He talked about his work writing songs for other artists, a parenting book he’d read that talked about using emotion-words, and how great the teacher Mousesack was for Dara.

“Ciri likes him too,” Geralt commented.

“Ugh, did she hate the substitute like Dara did? I had to come pick him up and do some serious milkshake damage control.” Jaskier remembered Dara sticking to his leg on the way out of the office, and he was completely nonverbal for hours. The second Dara confessed the substitute was mean and even tied a girl to a chair with her scarf, Jaskier called the school. Other parents had already complained, and Jaskier was assured the substitute was never coming back.

A stormcloud passed over Geralt’s face, so Jaskier knew he remembered.

“Dara was the one who untied her,” Geralt said after a moment, and Jaskier blinked.

“Ciri was the one tied up?”

Geralt nodded. “She’s hyperactive. We’re talking with her therapist about it, but yeah. From what I’ve heard, Dara’s gotten her out of a lot of scrapes, actually.”

“Oh,” Jaskier breathed. He watched Ciri and Dara walking ahead, sedately now that there was nothing to  _ ooh  _ and  _ ahh _ over. Dara was such a good kid, and Jaskier had fuck all to do with it. Shit, he needed to reach out to his parents again to get the rest of his cousin’s stuff. He hadn’t room to take it which was the reason he declined in the first place, but he should know more about Dara’s parents. Obviously they had something to teach Jaskier. 

“Where’s your car?” Geralt asked, and Jaskier realized they’d stopped walking. 

His brain plummeted back to the reality of their conversation, and he sputtered, “No car. We, well, we walked from our apartment complex a few blocks over.”

“Let me drive you home,” Geralt offered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Jaskier opened his mouth to refuse, but Ciri exclaimed, “Yes, Jaskier! This is Roach, and she is a stallion.”

Ciri pulled hard on the dulled handle of a muddy brown pickup, and the door crunched open. She was already climbing inside, Dara at her heels, when Jaskier felt a hand smooth over his shoulder. 

“You’re dead on your feet,” Geralt said low enough that the children wouldn’t hear. “Let me drive you a couple blocks.”

“Okay,” Jaskier relented because Geralt was infuriatingly right. He went to the passenger side, catching Dara under the arm to help him in. It was an old truck, just a bench as the front seat, and Geralt happened to be dummy thick, so Jaskier had to pull Dara halfway into his lap. 

Finally off his feet with Dara’s warm weight as a blanket, Jaskier only managed to stay awake so he could give directions. It wasn’t a long drive, really, but something domestic settled in Jaskier’s chest. It was a strange feeling, never having had anything like a wholesome family life. But with Geralt’s creaky truck and Ciri’s slight bounce next to him and Dara’s fidgeting, a small smile bloomed on Jaskier’s face. 

When Geralt slid into a parking space outside their building, the floaty calm vanished, replaced by sizzling adrenaline. Was Jaskier ready to let this DILF drive off into the night?

“Would you like to come in for some hot chocolate?” Obviously the answer was no. “As my thanks.”

Ciri’s pleading eyes swept over to her father, but Geralt was already smiling, flipping Jaskier’s heart upside down. 

“I’ve never turned down a hot chocolate.” 

“You’re in luck,” Jaskier said as they exited the truck. “We’re sort of hot chocolate connoisseurs. We’ve got all the fixin’s. Marshmallows. Whipped cream. Candy canes. You name it.”

“Milk or water?” Ciri questioned with a squint. 

“Milk, darling, of course,” Jaskier replied with a flourish to his hand. “But we are not above using water when the milk is out of stock.”

Ciri nodded at the sage advice. Jaskier’s keys jangled as he unlocked the door. He was determined not to be embarrassed about the state of the apartment. It wasn’t unclean; it was just cluttered. Jaskier hadn’t been the tidiest man before Dara came into his life, and he was proud of the fact that they now split the mess 50/50 at the very least. 

It was Dara’s turn to pull Ciri, making a beeline for the kitchen. Dara started their process, pulling out a pot and measuring cup and their jumbo tin of hot chocolate powder.

“I’m more of a microwave guy,” Geralt said, leaning casually in the doorway to the kitchen. Jaskier helped Dara set the burner, and then Dara took Ciri to the pantry to show off their topping options. 

“We’re very traditional in this household,” Jaskier replied haughtily. It made Geralt laugh, well and truly. Jaskier giggled along at his own irony. 

“Jaskier,” Dara said, tugging on the hem of the musician’s shirt. “Can we have the dandelion mugs, please?”

“Yes, sir, you may. Thank you for asking so politely.” Jaskier banged open his cabinets. It was his apartment, but he always opened at least three before remembering how it was arranged. 

So, maybe he had too many mugs. That was a normal thing to have too many of, right? He plucked his two favorite mugs off the shelf and handed them over to the excited kids. They were stolen from an awful couple he’d let fuck him a couple times. They’d called him a  _ weed _ , and if they weren’t a fan of weeds, they didn’t deserve to own two delightful vintage mugs covered in dandelions with the words  _ Stay Wild _ . Jaskier picked out one of his tamer mugs—full black but would reveal a rainbow flag once warmed by the hot chocolate. 

He didn’t notice Geralt was so close until a muscled arm reached over his head to pluck a cup from the shelf. Jaskier’s pulse kicked into gear when he saw it was the one with  _ Not gay as in happy, but bi as in fuck you. _

Jaskier spun, finding himself nearly chest to chest with Geralt. “A present,” Jaskier explained. “From an  _ ex  _ boyfriend.”

_ Cool it with the emphasis, brain, maybe the guys on the space station don’t need to know you’re single, _ Jaskier mentally derided himself. Geralt studied the mug with a quirk in his brow. 

“You know, my ex-wife got me the same one last year for Christmas,” Geralt replied. He twisted the mug so  _ fuck you  _ wasn’t on display to the whole world, but he kept it in his ridiculously large fingers. 

“Really?” Jaskier stuttered out before he was saved by the milk boiling. Well, boiling over; that shit goes fast. There were minimal bubbles seeping onto the stovetop, so Jaskier called it a win. Dara had already loaded up his and Ciri’s cups with the right amount of powder, an assortment of chocolate chip flavors, and crushed candy cane. 

Jaskier busied himself with preparing his own cup, and Geralt followed behind, copying his technique. Jaskier passed over the marshmallows and whipped cream that Dara so heavily ladled out. They all ended up in the living room, and thank the gods that Dara had forgotten to put away his Lego-Matchbox-car-Lincoln-log battle, or they all would have been positively squished on the couch. 

Dara started catching up Ciri on what she’d missed. Apparently, the ferrari was a sorceress who was attacking the Lego and Log castle with her general the army jeep. She and her battalion of four door sedans were up against the Porsche, the ambulance, the firetruck, and about ten other hot rods who were the last defense to the kingdom of Autozone to the north. Ciri picked up a purple sports car with flames on the hood and set it atop the Lego tower, declaring a psychic link between all the good cars. They started moving the cars with tense dialogue and dramatic sound effects. Jaskier couldn’t have been more proud. 

“I think Netflix should hire them,” Geralt said into his cup, shooting Jaskier an amused smile. 

“Oh, they could aim higher, darling,” Jaskier replied with a wave of his hand. He took another sip to hide from the fact that he’d used an affectionate pet name. He was Jaskier. He used pet names. It usually wasn’t a big deal except when he had a gorgeous, strapping,  _ older _ man smiling softly as their kids played together on the floor, and wasn’t  _ that  _ dizzying?

Their kids.  _ His  _ kid. When had he started thinking of Dara as his kid? Instead of his cousin one removed or his roommate that also happened to be a child in need of love and care. Jaskier started tumbling down a domestic fantasy where he didn’t live in this shitty apartment, where he could give Dara a backyard and a swing set and a bathtub. And then, suddenly Geralt was there, and Ciri was there, and maybe they had a dog too, but—

He was getting ahead of himself as usual. 

“This might be a little forward…” Jaskier hedged. He trailed off when he glanced over to see Geralt already looking at him. Already offering his phone, unlocked. 

“Just don’t put any emojis or anything like that,” Geralt said. Jaskier rolled his eyes. 

“Just a  _ little  _ personality.” Jaskier handed the phone back with the little yellow flower after his name. 

Geralt promptly hit the  _ edit  _ button. “I think you’ve got enough to go around.”

“Rude! Rude to me in my own home!” Jaskier unlocked his phone and gave it to Geralt. The grizzled man stared at it for a good five seconds, and Jaskier’s nerves started to sing like an untuned guitar. Maybe Geralt just wanted Jaskier’s number to text him on his own terms? 

But then Geralt opened a new contact for himself and added his number. He typed in his name, hesitated, and then key smashed. Jaskier laughed so hard he snorted, making the children glance up from their game. 

“Geralt,  _ really _ , there’s a language to these things. A finesse.” Jaskier hit the edit button, and he deleted the random string of emojis after Geralt’s name. 

He added the grumpy face, the smile (with cowboy hat), the ghost sticking its tongue out, and an assortment of others. He passed over the heart eyes for the star eyes, hoping Geralt didn’t notice the hesitation. But still, he wasn’t  _ that  _ subtle. 

“An eggplant?” Geralt asked, nose wrinkling. 

“Oh dear,” Jaskier said as he tried not to giggle. “There are some things we must learn for ourselves.”

“Hmmm.”

That was disgruntled as opposed to his earlier  _ I am listening but have nothing to comment  _ hum. Jaskier had gotten Cs in every foreign language he’d tried, but he could totally learn Geralt Speak. 

It wasn’t long until a sugar crash had Ciri and Dara yawning over their battlefield. Jaskier rescued their cups from the floor, and Geralt hunted down each of Ciri’s shoes. She protested putting them back on, kicking and squirming until finally Geralt just picked her up. She clung to his shoulder and said a very solemn goodbye. 

“Could we come over and play again, Mr. Jaskier?” Ciri asked. 

“You’re welcome any time, dear,” he said and patted the back of her puffy jacket. 

Geralt paused in the door, but Jaskier couldn’t be mad about letting out the heat when Geralt was looking so anxious. 

“Uh, see you around,” Geralt said, and he stepped out into a light snowfall.

“Absolutely, Geralt.” Jaskier winked at him for good measure. It lifted the tension off Geralt’s face, and he walked out to his car with a bounce in his step. 

Jaskier waited until Geralt got the engine to sputter alive, and then it was too cold to watch anymore. When he came back in, Dara was cleaning up his toys with sluggish hands, and Jaskier dropped a kiss to his head for his efforts. 

“Time for bed, rugrat,” he declared. “You can finish putting your toys away in the morning.”

Dara went without a fight. Jaskier made sure he brushed his teeth and put on clean pajamas, and then he tucked in the little boy like he was a gourmet Mexican chef swaddling a burrito. 

Dara yawned, and just as Jaskier was going to sneak out, the boy said, “This was a really fun day.”

“We’ll have to see if Ciri can come back sometime,” Jaskier said. 

“And Geralt,” Dara demanded. “We can both have playdates.”

Jaskier was hoping for a different kind of date too, but he could see a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders or two. Jaskier bid Dara goodnight, and the boy was asleep before the door clicked shut. 

Jaskier tidied up the rest of their hot chocolate bar, and he washed the dishes. He picked up a few of his music sheets that were scattered around, even going so far as to file them in some sort of order in the chaos that was his composing notebooks. Jaskier was in the middle of deciding whether or not it was late enough to justify going to bed when his phone rang. 

A call from Geralt. 

Jaskier picked up and tried not to sound so breathless when he said, “Hello.”

“The eggplant?” Was that a smirk he heard on Geralt’s face? His usual deadpan with an ever so slight lilt of amusement?

“Ah, I see someone knows how to Google,” Jaskier replied. 

“It’s been known to happen on occasion.” Oh, Geralt was  _ definitely _ smirking. 

Jaskier sighed and said, “Maybe I’m just being hopeful?”

“There’s a bakery on fifth street with a kids’ craft section,” Geralt said, not changing topics as much as Jaskier has expected.

“Going for the obligatory coffee date?”

“Something like that.” That was a  _ smile _ . Not the smirk born of witty banter, Jaskier heard something  _ fond.  _

“Sunday work for you?” Jaskier was a reasonable man and could wait a whole day before seeing Geralt again. Probably. Hopefully. 

“Two?”

“Two sounds great.”

“Great.”

“And Geralt?”

“Hmmm?”

Jaskier let his lips curl upwards as he spoke. 

“I’m bringing more mistletoe.”


End file.
